This invention relates in general to photography, and more particularly to systems and methods for producing and distributing personalized photographic souvenirs for spectators of an event.
Observing live action events such as sports games, concerts, conventions, rallies, plays, and the like, is a major pastime. Many spectators attending these events consider them to be memorable and as such the spectators often take photographs of the events. Unfortunately, these photographs typically show only the action and not the spectator, or only the spectator and not the action. This results in obtaining a souvenir that for all practical purposes is no different than commercially available pictures and trading cards, or published photos of the event in magazines and newspapers. In addition, many spectators simply do not take photos at all, due to difficulty in carrying the necessary equipment, accessing a suitable photo-taking location at the venue, lack of suitable zoom lenses, prohibition by the venue owners, etc.
Since attending live events is usually a source of pride and joy which many people want to share with relatives and friends, it would be desirable for a spectator to have a personalized souvenir that indicates positively that the spectator did indeed attend the event.
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved form of a personalized souvenir for a spectator at a live event.
Another object is to use photographs and/or scanned images of performers at the live event, photographs and/or scanned images of items representative of the event (e.g. a ticket stub, advertisement, or team names and logos), and photos of the spectators, to form the personalized souvenir.
Another object is to provide methods of obtaining the necessary photographs and/or scanned images and preparing the souvenirs such that the souvenirs can be distributed to spectators during or soon after the live event, at or near the site of the live event.
These and other objects are accomplished by the creation of personalized souvenirs which include real life photos, including photos of the spectators, to create an effect on the spectators known as xe2x80x9ctelepresence.xe2x80x9d That is, the spectators at a later time will typically be able to recall the event in a more realistic sense than if they looked at other souvenirs or photos which did not include photos of themselves combined with photos and memorabilia from the live event.
The systems and methods of the present invention use at least one pan-and-tilt camera system located at the event which takes an orderly, indexed series of photos of the spectators preferably soon after the start of the event, such that substantially every spectator will appear in at least one spectator photo. The spectator photos are indexed according to a predetermined mapping algorithm which maps a particular location of the event venue to a virtual sector (so called because the sector boundaries may not necessarily correspond to physical sections at the venue). Individual souvenirs are then created at a centralized souvenir assembly site, by organizing and combining a spectator photo with the other photos and/or scanned images. The souvenirs are then distributed to vendors who then present them to spectators in the sector or sectors from where the spectator photo was taken. The souvenirs may also be available to spectators from the centralized assembly site. Truly personalized souvenirs of attendance at the event are thus provided for large numbers of spectators, who may obtain the personalized souvenirs in a relatively quick and easy manner while still at the event venue.
Other objects of the present invention will be apparent from the detailed description which follows, when read in conjunction with the drawings.